David Salle: ‘Ghost Paintings’

It’s hard to envision paintings more perfect for our performance-mad time than the ones in “David Salle: Ghost Paintings,” which date from 1992 but debuted at the Arts Club of Chicago just last summer and look as if they might have been made yesterday. They’re also a fascinating chapter in the oeuvre of Mr. Salle, who has worked in film, theater and performance since the mid-1970s but is far better known for his collagelike figurative paintings.

Each painting is based on a photograph of Beverly Eaby, a frequent model for Mr. Salle, dancing beneath a bedsheet in his studio. The images are eerie enough, with the figure present only as a spectral ripple of the cloth. Even more otherworldly, however, is the way they seem to materialize right on canvas (actually strips of photosensitized linen, three per picture) only to vanish again when you focus on the color blocking of the overpainting.

It’s tempting to assume that the “ghost” in these paintings is that of painting itself, an idea that would have had some currency in the painting-is-dead discussions of the early ’90s. But there are no endgames here, only a strange and beguiling triangulation of painting, photography and performance that makes you wonder what else Mr. Salle has been hiding.

A version of this review appears in print on December 6, 2013, on Page C29 of the New York edition with the headline: David Salle: ‘Ghost Paintings’. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe